*Names have been changed

Here, they talk to you like you’re a human being and not an addict, not somebody who’s a lowlife.”

Sitting holding *Freddie, her sleeping three-month-old baby, *Megan doesn’t miss a beat when asked what it is about Jasmine Mother’s Recovery that, in her words, “saved her life” – and Freddie’s.

It’s the approach of the staff at this rehab centre that Megan credits with helping her detox and stay clean, and grow her confidence in herself and her parenting.

At Jasmine – part of Plymouth-based charity Trevi – Megan feels she’s been treated as someone worthy of support rather than “outcasted” like she’d been in the past.

A ‘lifesaving’ service

Many of the women we meet here use the word ‘lifesaving’, and it isn’t a figure of speech. If she hadn’t been “pretty much mandated” to come here in care proceedings, or have her child taken into foster care, “I’d be dead or on the streets somewhere or in hospital,” Megan says.

At points in her pregnancy, she’d been using drugs every week and was hospitalised a number of times due to suicide attempts, she explains.

Now, after two months of Jasmine’s treatment programme, and with another four weeks to go, she is hoping to return home with Freddie, subject to a successful parenting assessment.

She hopes her six-year-old daughter – who was removed after a previous relationship breakdown and period of mental ill health led to her alcohol and drug misuse – will also be returned to her care.

The only provision of its kind

Bedroom at Jasmine Mother’s Recovery. Photo: Trevi

Jasmine is the only rehab provision in the country specifically for mothers where they can stay with their children, with the goal that on leaving, as well as staying abstinent, they can keep their children.

Last year, 83% of women referred here successfully detoxed, and eight out of 10 children were able to remain with their mother after leaving.

Jasmine accepts referrals from across the UK. As some residents tell me, distance from the town where you are known to dealers – and/or from violent or co-dependent relationships – can play a part in helping someone establish a ‘clean’ life.

When Community Care visited Trevi House, as Jasmine was then called, in 2017, it was at half occupancy with no waiting list. CEO Hannah Shead, who has been here since 2011, says it is currently full but demand fluctuates due to a lack of awareness that the service exists, and the funding model meaning it is sometimes perceived as only for very extreme cases.

This is despite money spent at this point potentially saving local authorities thousands in the long run by keeping a child out of care.

For most placements, the mother and child are funded separately by adults’ and children’s services. Hannah says that, currently, funding from adults’ services is a bit easier to come by, while it is more of a challenge for cash-strapped children’s services.

Women often fight to come here or it is ordered by the court, frequently, but not always, by family drug and alcohol court (FDAC) judges.

“We’re seen as a really niche response, whereas actually I think there should be somewhere like this in every region,” she adds.

Tension between needs of parents and children

Hannah acknowledges that Jasmine sits at a point of tension: “In our world, people are often either aligned with the needs of the adult or they’re aligned with the needs of the child. And we try and work with both and that isn’t always easy.”

Women have to want to work on their recovery from addiction, not just be focused on wanting to keep their child, I learn from Vicky, a former resident back for a visit today.

Generally, a rigorous assessment and admissions process means that only women whom staff believe will benefit from the service come here.

Occasionally, Vicky says, someone would resist the treatment programme, which could disrupt the house dynamic. In severe cases, placements have to be ended, which is devastating for all involved.

An inescapable focus on child safeguarding

In the garden at Jasmine Mother’s Recovery. Photo: Community Care

The centre’s child safeguarding function is another area of potential complexity. Around 90% of the children here are under interim care orders.

While, as Megan describes, the atmosphere is warm and family-like – the communal dining area the women eat round while feeding their babies feels like the heart of the place – small reminders that their parenting is continually being observed are inescapable.

A security gate protects access to the centre, while CCTV cameras cover all the bedrooms and communal areas. Baby monitors are in constant use for mothers to monitor their child’s welfare, and for staff to observe them. Care plans and risk management plans for each family are reviewed at least once a week in Jasmine’s multi-disciplinary team meetings.

And the child’s placing social worker or local authority duty team are informed immediately of any safeguarding incidents.

*Mia has a two-year-old, one of the oldest children currently at Jasmine. She would love to take him to the park but this could only be done on a planned supervised trip.

This is the one of the few indications we hear from the women that the set-up is challenging. Another is that being around a lot of other women can be hard for some residents. Mostly though, the talk is of opportunity and being given a chance to show that they can parent.

The link between having a child removed and worsening addiction

Shona, the therapist, runs different groups with the women every day, with a focus on trauma and recovery. Women also receive one-to-one counselling.

Shona lets Trevi patron, Jenny Molloy, and me sit in on today’s group. Jenny asks the women who want to speak to tell us how they came to be here, and their experiences with social workers.

Megan is not the only one who has had a child removed previously. The experience of a removal triggering or worsening drug use and addiction is mentioned by many.

*Selena is in Jasmine with her daughter. She calls herself an alcoholic and says she’s dabbled in other drugs.

A few years ago, when her older child was born, she was in an abusive relationship. She went to a mother and baby foster placement and would secretly take her son to visit her then partner “because I was trying to build a family and I thought he loved me”.

But when she returned to living with her partner she couldn’t cope with him “not being what he needed to be for me and my son” and started drinking again. This led to her son being taken into care; he is now looked after by her family.

After my son was removed from me, my life just went so much worse. This structure was removed from my life.”

“I wasn’t getting up and bathing my son every morning,” Selena continues. “I wasn’t changing him, I had no routine to put him to bed…I used to just stand out on the street every night and drink with my children’s dads and we’d beat each other up. And then I got pregnant again with my daughter.”

The group work lodge, children’s play area and garden at Jasmine Mother’s Recovery. Photo: Community Care

*Caitlin’s baby, *Aimee, is eight months old. Aimee was fostered for the first few months of her life and Caitlin could only see her at a contact centre before they were able to come to Jasmine.

She says her drinking was “quite out of control” at the time and she used heroin during her pregnancy. She has completed a detox from methadone at Jasmine and Jenny tells her she looks great, glowing.

Caitlin describes how unsupported she felt when she was in a violent relationship. Her older child was taken into care soon after starting primary school.

“He was turning up late, he had holes in his socks…trivial things. But within two weeks of them getting involved, he was taken out of my care,” she says. “I just spiralled. I wasn’t getting the support I needed.

“Few years later, I got raped quite badly, and [the perpetrator got found] not guilty,” she adds. “And that’s when I realised I was actually addicted to heroin.”

Caitlin says she dislikes the terminology that is often used and the “boxes or brackets we’re put into”.

“Personally I’d rather have the stigma of being an addict, like substance misuse, rather than neglect. We made a few mistakes but it’s because of our addiction, not because we wanted to hurt our children.”

Sharing experiences with other women who have been through something similar is a key part of the therapeutic process at Jasmine. Megan tells me she used to feel there was something wrong with her.

“Obviously doing the mistakes that I did when I was pregnant and that feeling of like, ‘why am I like this? No one else is’. I was beating myself up over it. But coming here, I’ve realised that there’s other women out there with similar stories and that we are not bad people.”

We’re not bad mums.”

Everyone’s story is different and personal. But common experiences come up again and again – as well as abusive relationships and children removed, the sense that support to overcome problematic drug and alcohol use and be a good, safe parent is hard to come by.

Feeling judged and fearful of social workers

It’s uncomfortable being from Community Care in an environment where almost everyone says they have felt, at best, judged by social workers and constantly fearful of their perceived power to take their children away.

At worst, when they trusted, did what they believed was expected of them or asked for help, they felt betrayed that the ‘goalposts moved’, most often with care proceedings being initiated.

Wall hanging made by Jasmine resident. Photo: Community Care

Tammy was a resident four years ago and now works for Trevi’s Spark project, which supports multiply disadvantaged women who are experiencing abuse, and volunteers as an assertive outreach worker.

She tells me that, before coming here, she moved hundreds of miles across the country to go to a women’s refuge in an area where she knew nobody.

“I’ve done what they’d asked me to do…All through my pregnancy they said they had no plans for removing my child, that she would be going onto a child in need plan.

“Then, when she was a couple of days old, I had a social worker at the hospital saying: ‘We’re going to be taking you to court on Monday to remove your child. We’re gonna let you have contact three times a week for an hour and a half at a time.’”

Instead, the child’s guardian suggested Jasmine and the court ordered her to come here. Tammy says she felt anxious the whole time that her baby could be removed without warning.

“If I was in a [therapy] group and knowing that a social worker was going to turn up, I’d tell the nursery staff: don’t let them get anywhere near my baby, thinking that while I was in group, she was gonna do a runner with my child.

“I was being reassured that I was doing the right things and I know she couldn’t have done that. But at the time, that was how I felt.”

I was literally petrified until the day I actually walked out of that gate with my baby.”

The shared lounge at Jasmine Mother’s Recovery. Photo: Trevi

Selena says: “They tell you to be open and honest. But you go to them for support, and they use that against you. You can’t say anything. If you’re lying, you’re bad. And then if you’re honest, you’re bad too.”

Shona, the therapist, tells me that it is a “huge” betrayal of trust when someone does overcome the shame of using in pregnancy and asks for support, but then feels it is used against them.

“And there’s so much about that then affects their recovery. I don’t think there’s one woman that I’ve met here who hasn’t had that happen to them.”

‘She worked with me, not against me’

While there is fear and anger, many of the women recall good experiences with social workers too.

What characterises positive experiences with social services?

Megan says her current social worker, “seems to have my back a bit …She’s very understanding – she’s quick to give me credit and praise, which you don’t necessarily normally hear.”

“Getting to know the family, not just reading it on paper,” says Helen, a former resident who now facilitates the Freedom Programme here, supporting women to understand domestic abuse and have healthier relationships.

On paper, I look terrible. There was a lot of crap in my past….It’s about understanding people’s past,” she continues.

It’s being that person that goes that extra mile for that family, because then you will get that extra mile back.”

Helen says she sometimes feels professionals have made their mind up about women.

“You can see the hurdles they’re putting in their way. With the good ones, they’re trying to knock down hurdles and really see what’s going on: ‘What does this family really need? How can I help? What resources can I put in place for this woman? And these children. Because my ethos is: if mum’s OK, child’s OK.’”

Vicky puts it straightforwardly: “you’ve got to be kind”. “The best social worker I ever had showed me kindness I’d never seen. She worked with me, not against me. She was very transparent.”

Vicky says newer social workers seem “more open, more receptive to women – which I think is making a massive difference, but we’re not there yet.”

Staff and residents mention wanting social workers to have more training about addiction, both its links with trauma and the physical effects.

“I was told to just stop drinking”, Selena says. “That could have killed me.”

They are also keen to share understanding of domestic abuse, especially why people don’t leave abusive partners.

Women who are not in abusive relationships may face different challenges if they have a partner who is in active addiction.

Megan explains that her social worker is also trying to help her partner get into rehab: “When there’s two addicts living under the same roof, one of them’s more likely to relapse than the other and bring the other one down.”

Relocating

While some women are looking forward to going back to homes that are waiting for them, Jasmine supports others who want, need or are encouraged by professionals to relocate to Plymouth.

Returning to the town where you were in active addiction carries a risk of relapse. Caitlin is getting support to find somewhere to live in Plymouth “cos I can’t really go back to all the users and stuff where I’m from. They’re all hanging around outside rehabs waiting for you to relapse so it’s not great.”

Wall hanging made by Jasmine residents. Photo: Community Care

If families stay in Plymouth, women can continue attending the same Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Drug Addicts Anonymous (DAA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings they went to while at Jasmine and benefit from Trevi’s Sunflower Centre, a therapeutic service for women with complex needs, including addictions and domestic abuse.

Currently, most women are funded for 12 weeks. After that, local authorities are keen to see women’s ability to look after their children in the community.

While there’s an understanding that funding is tight, staff and many of the mothers say 12 weeks is not long enough to simultaneously detox, go through the therapeutic programme and learn parenting skills. The best results often come when women have longer.

While clearly women want to complete the programme, know whether they can keep their child and move on, I wonder if it’s also daunting to leave somewhere that offers safety, community and a rare experience of feeling supported.

Megan laughs that she’d almost like to live here and is a bit nervous about leaving.

“Obviously just the whole thought of relapsing. Because it’s always in my head, as an addict, it’s always there. But because of the groups and things [here], it’s taught me the techniques I need to prevent that. And it really does, because it’s consistent, it’s every single day.

“Every time I think about using or going back to that, it’s flip and then switch and I do it subconsciously now, so it just goes away. And it installs a fear in you as well that if I do it again, I’m going to lose absolutely everything and I will not have an opportunity to come back here again.”

Megan knows that when she leaves she will have the number of a family support worker from Jasmine and be able to have FaceTime calls.

Does she think she’ll be one of the people who comes back to visit? “Definitely,” she says.

I’ll bring him back when he’s older and be like, look, this is our journey. This is where mum brought you. This place, everyone here, is the reason why we’re together.

Starting life again

Before we leave, Helen has arranged for us to speak on the phone to Hayley, who left Jasmine two weeks ago with her son. We can’t see her face, but the positivity, strength and life in her voice are palpable. Hayley remembers that she didn’t want help at first.

Wall decoration at Jasmine Mother’s Recovery. Photo: Community Care

“I had to reach my low – I couldn’t get any lower – for me to pick myself up,” she says.

Hayley was here for 16 weeks and adds: “It was only the last few weeks of me being here that I feel normal. Like for the past few weeks, I wake up every single morning full of life. I don’t feel ill, I don’t feel groggy. I’m able to see to my son without feeling like shit. I feel amazing.”

She credits Jasmine with helping her to be a mum and also find her own identity, even down to what food and music she likes.

“I literally get to start my life again and figure out what it is I like. I get to do it all from fresh. Clean.

“I never used to see a future. Now you’re asking me about my future and I do. A happy life, a clean life with my boys… I can see it. And I’m jumping in with both hands.”

For the latest episode of CC Inform’s podcast, Learn on the Go, we spoke to 18-year-old Dan about his experiences as a young person placed in children’s homes and semi-independent accommodation.

He shares his perspective on how social workers and services worked with him from his early teenage years, and what he would have liked to have been different. He discusses how the system could be more genuinely ‘ambitious for children in care’, and the types of support that would have made his move into adulthood and employment easier.

Having seen first-hand the stress social workers can be under and the impact this can have on young people, Dan is not starry-eyed about what this role can involve. But it’s because of his experiences that Dan supports our Choose Social Work campaign. In these extracts from the episode, he shares his thoughts on the difference social work can make.

Quotes appear below; click on the media player to listen to a five minute extract of the podcast.

The difference a positive experience of social work can make

Dan described how he “built such a positive relationship with a social worker” after making a disclosure at school and then receiving a message from a family member that suggested they knew about the disclosure:

“I immediately texted my social worker…And this social worker was due into court. I told him, ‘There’s a problem. You’ve got to come to school now and you’ve got to figure it out. You’ve messed up.’… And he dropped everything. He moved around court for me and he got another social worker to go, and he was at the school an hour later. I understand that can’t happen all the time, but with this big disclosure…And actually, that family member didn’t know anything, it was a misunderstanding. But just that reassurance…That was probably the first time I felt like a social worker cared.”

And I don’t know how to explain that experience – to have this person drop everything and come to my aid when I was really vulnerable.

“And to be able to support me in the correct way, it was such a heart-warming experience and it really changed my mind about social workers and the job that they do…. And I didn’t tell him any of the information [before he came to the school]… That was a big thing – that he kind of didn’t push too much but he understood, ‘Dan’s in need. I don’t know what it is but I’m going to go and be there for him’.”

‘You’re the one who helped them achieve that’

“We need people running these campaigns and we need people, you know, trying hard to get people into social work and show the good. ‘Cause there’s bad but there’s also really, really good.”

I think social work is so important for young people. You can literally change a young person’s life.

“I work in children’s mental health and I know it’s not the same thing, but for me I get that joy from, you know, seeing that I’ve helped a young person and I’ve supported them, even if it’s something simple like…getting them out of bed on time when they usually don’t. It’s the little things… Take the small wins when you can, because that’s so important. And notice them. Notice that you’re the one who helped them achieve that.”

“Social workers: I think they’re amazing. They’re the ground force and they are what keep the system going, I think. If you took out the director or you took out a manager it wouldn’t crumble so much. But if you took out the social workers…that’s when you really start to understand how important our social workers are and how much we actually do need to look after them.”

Child sexual exploitation is becoming “even more hidden” as police forces and local authorities fail to keep up with this “pernicious and changing problem”, an investigation has found.

The report by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse said agencies were underestimating the extent of CSE, and that less was known about its prevalence now than in 2015, when it was deemed a top policing priority. This was partly due to many services now approaching exploitation more broadly and recording CSE cases as criminal exploitation, rather than as a distinct category.

“Deficient” assessment practice, where children were deemed ‘at risk’ of CSE when they had already been harmed, and definitions that were “not fully understood or universally applied” also contributed to CSE being “downplayed”, the inquiry said.

It also criticised the lack of detail in Ofsted findings and said recent inspection reports were often positive about CSE practice but did not give detailed evidence for their judgement, potentially giving “false reassurance”.

Its report suggested leaders may be “more keen to assure themselves that their area is ‘not another Rochdale or Rotherham’” than driven to root out the full extent of CSE locally.

Inquiry chair Alexis Jay said: ”The sexual exploitation of children by networks is not a rare phenomenon confined to a small number of areas with high-profile criminal cases. It is a crime which involves the sexual abuse of children in the most degrading and destructive ways, by multiple perpetrators.

“We found extensive failures by local authorities and police forces in the ways in which they tackled this sexual abuse. There appeared to be a flawed assumption that child sexual exploitation was on the wane, however it has become even more of a hidden problem and increasingly underestimated when only linked to other forms of criminal behaviour such as county lines.”

‘Dilution of focus’

The report acknowledged that the rationale for teams and models covering all forms of exploitation “appears to be that it discourages a ‘silo’ mentality”. However, it said the harm sexually exploited children experienced and the service response they needed could be significantly different from that of victims of other forms of exploitation, or other sexual abuse. If CSE were simply subsumed within a broader exploitation category, “the risk of dilution of focus is too great,” the report said, adding that it needed a “distinctive and separate focus”.

Data “confused and confusing”

The inquiry concentrated on six local authority and police force areas that had not already been subject to an independent investigation: Durham, Swansea, Warwickshire, St Helens, Tower Hamlets and Bristol. All had shifted to consider CSE with a general framework of child exploitation.

It said it did not receive a reliable picture of CSE from these case study areas and “the data presented were confused and confusing”. In two areas, it found levels of CSE appearing to fall, which it put down to changes in “data collection and reporting problems, rather than changes in prevalence”.

The report recommended that the government take steps to ensure CSE data is collected separately from criminal exploitation and other forms of child sexual abuse and in a consistent way. Services should also record sex, ethnicity and disability of both the victim and perpetrator, to assist police disruption activity and local authority commissioning.

‘Restrictive’ definition

The inquiry also noted “flawed reasons” why children were not classified as victims or at risk of CSE, including examples in one local authority of “failure to understand the concept of consent”.

Separately, the investigation said the definition of CSE in statutory guidance for England was too restrictive in saying the sexual exploitation needed to be in exchange for something the victim wanted and/or for the financial advantage or increased status of the perpetrator.

It said that if one or both of these elements had to be present “the most egregious cases – where children are brutalised into sexual activity by serious violence – would fall outside the definition”.

The inquiry said that the concept of ‘exchange’, which might suggest children had a choice in their exploitation, was an “unhelpful distraction” from the imperative of identifying all children harmed by, or at heightened risk, and catching perpetrators. The report said workers from different agencies should be able to understand the definition and apply it consistently, but instead there was “considerable and unnecessary disagreement”.

It called on government to revise the statutory guidance to state that the “core element of CSE” was that the child was coerced, manipulated or deceived into sexual activity.

The inquiry said that any definition should also be regularly reviewed to ensure it addressed the evolving nature of CSE, including changes in online grooming and abuse.

Additionally, it recommended the DfE update the guidance to include detailed information on the role of the internet in CSE perpetration, and how to identify and respond to CSE perpetrated by networks.

Address the ‘merging of risk and harm’

Across the case study authorities, the investigation found “repeated examples” of children being described as being at low, medium or high risk of CSE when they had already been harmed and needed immediate intervention.

“If a child has a sexually transmitted disease, this is clear evidence that a child has already experienced harm; it is not merely an indicator of risk,” it warned. It recommended that updated DfE guidance make clear that signs of sexual exploitation should be treated as such, not as “at risk” indicators. Local authority assessments should accurately distinguish between those at risk of CSE, those who were experiencing or had experienced it, and victims at risk of further abuse, the report said.

It also cited examples where incorporating CSE practice with other forms of exploitation had impacted on risk assessment. For example, in Durham, an adapted Child Exploitation Vulnerability Tracker (CEVT) was used, but only children scored as high risk for CSE met the threshold for monitoring. The investigators said this meant some children did not receive the appropriate response.

The frequent downgrading of actual harm’ to ‘risk’ meant opportunities to investigate, disrupt and prosecute offenders were reduced, the report noted.

The inquiry drew attention to the “troubling” continued use of checklist approaches to assessing CSE. It said assessments that score risk numerically should only be used alongside a competent professional assessment that explored and recorded harm the child had experienced.

It highlighted the National Working Group (NWG) Exploitation Response Unit’s assessment tool used in Warwickshire and the practitioner prompts in the All Wales Practice Guide as positive examples of holistic risk assessment practice.

Inappropriate language

The inquiry also found the language used around risk was problematic in some areas. The report noted a director of children’s services giving evidence to the inquiry had spoken of a child exhibiting “risk taking behaviours” and “placing [herself] in situations of vulnerability”. Elsewhere, a child’s record said she had “sexual partners from the age of 11”. However, it found that some councils regularly audited files for use of inappropriate language.

The report also concluded that insufficient attention was given to identifying victims from particular groups, and then providing them with appropriate support. While it found evidence of awareness raising and training on CSE of boys in all six areas, the inquiry said abuse of boys could be “less understood and overlooked”, particularly exploitation via dating apps and social media.

The investigation also heard evidence of the additional barriers to identifying or disclosing CSE of children from ethnic minority backgrounds. This included “a lack of cultural competence” or confidence in working with particular communities and low diversity among staff in some areas leading to unconscious bias and low levels of reporting.

Disabled children made up a third of the sample of children’s experiences explored in-depth across the case study areas, and the report said they were generally at heightened risk of CSE. But the investigation said there was “no or limited evidence” their disability was taken into account in assessments.

Children in residential care

The report also noted that children in residential care were particularly vulnerable to CSE, but there was a shortage of suitable placements for those experiencing harm or at risk of it.

In the case study areas, it found evidence of victims placed in unsuitable placements or receiving poor pre- and post-placement support. The inquiry said out-of-area placements raised particular concerns and, where the placement was poorly chosen, increased risks.

“It is…widely recognised that in these circumstances children may also be groomed by perpetrators who have followed them to a distant placement to continue to exploit them or to engage them in county lines crimes,” the report said.

“Children in the new area may be exploited by perpetrators, as they are vulnerable and without support networks.”
While the investigation found minimal use of unregulated accommodation for sexually exploited children, it said the lack of staff supervision or support increased vulnerability to CSE and was a serious concern.

Last September, the government banned the use of unregulated accommodation for children in care under 16 and, from 2023, such independent or semi-independent provision will be regulated according to new national standards, though without the need to provide care.

However, the inquiry said the government should go further and ban the use of such provision for 16- and 17-year-olds who had experienced, or were at heightened risk of, CSE, “without delay”.

Social Work England has removed 125 practitioners from the register for not meeting their final deadline to submit a piece of CPD in order to renew registration.

The regulator highlighted that this was less than half the number who were removed in 2020 after failing to submit CPD during the extension period. Last year, 256 social workers were taken off the register for this reason.

It also said there will not be an extension period for renewals in 2022 and recommended social workers record CPD regularly.

Second year

The smaller number removed is in line with the higher rate of CPD submission at the 30 November deadline in 2021 than in 2020, which was the first year social workers had to renew registration with Social Work England. It introduced the requirement to submit CPD after it took over regulation of the profession in England from the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), alongside an annual rather than biennial renewal process.

In 2020, 1,349 social workers had paid their registration fee but not submitted CPD by 30 November. At the same point this year, 826 had applied and paid, but not recorded CPD. They were given an extension to 21 December to do so.

Overall renewal numbers were also higher at the deadline in 2021, with 2,869 (3%) of existing registrants failing to renew, compared with 4,590 in 2020.

There are currently 97,400 social workers on the register. Social Work England said this was a snapshot figure which changes almost every day due to people leaving and joining.

Restoration

Social workers who are removed from the register are unable to use the title ‘social worker’ in England or practice. If they wish to rejoin, they can apply through the restoration process which costs £135. They then need to pay the usual £90 registration free if approved.

Last year, social workers who were removed or failed to renew at the main deadline were given temporary registration, a measure that was in place to assist with the pandemic response. The option for temporary registration has since closed, although social workers registered in this way still hold it.

The regulator said  the government would decide when temporary registration would end entirely. “We’re reminding social workers with temporary registration that they should apply to restore their full registration as soon as possible if they wish to continue to practise.”

Changes for 2022

Sarah Blackmore, executive director of strategy, policy and engagement at Social Work England said the regulator would like to thank all social workers who submitted CPD and completed their renewal application on time.

Blackmore said next year there would not be a grace period for completing renewals:

“Following consultation with the sector, we have made some changes to the CPD requirements for the new registration year, which can be found on our website. There will not be a CPD extension period in 2022 and we recommend that social workers aim to record CPD regularly and well before the deadline of 30 November.”

For the registration year running 1 December 2021 – 30 November 2022, social workers need to record a minimum of two pieces of CPD (previously it was one piece), and reflect on at least one piece with a peer.

CPD review

A sample of the CPD submitted by all social workers will be reviewed by the regulator to ensure it meets the requirements. Assessors will consider whether the CPD is relevant to social work practice, and whether there is a clear description of the impact it had on their practice. Blackmore said:

“We will select 2.5% of social workers who have submitted CPD on 5 January. Their CPD will be reviewed by independent assessors. Those selected will not need to do anything, but we will tell them they have been selected. There is full guidance here.”

Anyone looking to contact the regulator can find details and their Christmas opening hours here.

Routine family court hearings will be opened up for reporting by journalists and bloggers, under plans to increase transparency unveiled last week.

President of the family division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, said a culture shift to “open justice” was required to increase public trust, and could be achieved while maintaining children’s anonymity.

“Justice taking place in private, where the press cannot report what has happened and where public information is very limited, is bound to lead to a loss of public confidence and a perception that there is something to hide,” he wrote in conclusions to a review of transparency in the family courts.

Not mutually exclusive

In the report, Confidence and Confidentiality, Sir Andrew noted greater openness in the family courts had been discussed for at least 30 years but progress had been “glacial” due to tension between that goal and the importance of safeguarding children and their privacy.

He argued, however, that the two concerns were not “mutually exclusive” and that his proposals – based on the work of a panel that he chaired – addressed both.

These include requiring family court judges to anonymise and publish at least 10% of their decisions, “a very significant increase”, said Sir Andrew. He said this would generate greater knowledge of how the courts approached mainstream cases, “not just the high profile or most serious issues”.

As well as countering the “serious reputational damage” the family justice system faces amid accusations of secrecy and anonymous accounts of negative experiences, the president said his proposals would give professionals more information about what happened in courts around the country, as the current lack of transparency meant educational opportunities were missed.

‘Learn and improve’

“The Family Court is currently not sufficiently transparent even to those, in particular the judges and the social work professionals, who are working within it,” he said, arguing that more dissemination would help enable improvements in practice.

The report outlined “very clear rules” to maintain children and families’ privacy and to ensure that details of abuse were not made public, either in media reports or published judgments. Sir Andrew said he would issue guidance on this.

He said there would be a further consultation on “the approach to the naming of local authorities, treating clinicians, social workers and experts”.

In addition to these measures, the president proposed:

• Compulsory data collection at the end of each case to assist understanding of decisions being made and identification of “patterns and problems”, with the ultimate aim of achieving better outcomes.
• Making court lists of cases to be heard more detailed, with information about the nature of the proceedings, type of hearing and estimated time, and making these available in advance to journalists and bloggers.
• Publishing an annual report on the family court’s work, including data on case numbers, categories of proceeding and outcomes, as well as auditing the progress of ‘transparency’ measures.

Family courts and the media: what’s changing?

The procedure rules governing family court cases mean that they are usually held in private, unless the court directs otherwise. This differs from, for example, the Court of Protection, which sits in public.

Although accredited reporters have been allowed to attend family courts since 2009 (unless restricted for child welfare or to protect witnesses), reporting on hearings when a court is sitting in private would place them in contempt of court under section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 (AJA). Proceedings involving children and families heard by magistrates, district and circuit judges therefore rarely receive press coverage; cases reported in national and local media and by bloggers are usually those that are appealed in higher courts.

As ‘first instance’ judgments are also not routinely published, the president said this meant most family court work “is not open to any form of outside scrutiny or appraisal”.

“In recent times, cases, which have rightly been highlighted as causing concern, have only come to the attention of the media by being heard in public on appeal. Had an appeal not taken place, it is unlikely that the public (and indeed the court system) would have become aware of what the various appeal judges held were significant judicial errors,” he continued.

Sir Andrew said he would make changes to the Family Procedure Rules 2010 to allow reporting so that journalists and bloggers would not be in contempt of court. He expressed support for Parliament reviewing whether section 12 of the AJA should be repealed and replaced but said that was not a matter for the judiciary.

The president said he shared the view of most who gave evidence to his review that “total public access” to Family Court hearings was not currently justified.

Pilots before implementation

Sir Andrew said he anticipated a short consultation process on the detail of implementing the proposals, with a trial of allowing the media to report on cases in one urban and one rural local authority area to start soon, monitored by a transparency implementation group he would establish and by children on the Family Justice Young People’s Board.

These pilots, and establishing communication with local and national media, were intended to ensure that unforeseen issues could be dealt with before a national rollout, as well as finding ways to mitigate concerns that journalists may misunderstand or distort proceedings in pursuit of a ‘good story’.

Safeguards

Sir Andrew said his initial view was that journalists and bloggers attending court should be allowed to read position and witness statements to assist their understanding of proceedings, but not see medical reports or primary documents such as police disclosures.

He also set out similar approaches for both media and judges publishing their decisions, to ensure children were anonymised and to prevent ‘jigsaw identification’ – prohibiting details of, for example, schools, hospitals and localities being published.

The review found that “the voice of children and young people on this issue is strong and clear; they do not wish to have their personal information and the detail of their lives made public”.

The president said he would consult further on how to ensure detailed accounts of abuse – which were both “inimical to the interests of the child, [and] also may be picked up and circulated by those who trawl the web with a perverted interest in such material” – were not included in any published judgments.

He acknowledged that judges were likely not following 2014 guidance to publish judgements in certain categories of case because of “the increased burden that the task of proofreading and anonymisation places” on an already stretched workforce. Sir Andrew said he would press for the establishment of an anonymisation unit within Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service that could undertake anonymisation through “human input and/or software”.

Respecting children’s wishes and feelings

Cafcass said it supported greater transparency to improve public understanding of the family courts, assessments and outcomes, as long as children’s wishes and feelings are respected.

“A child or young person learning about their background through media reporting, or details of their family life becoming known within their community could be potentially harmful. They must have their welfare and their need for privacy respected, particularly as we know that children and young people have expressed a wish for their stories to remain out of the public domain,” it said in a statement welcoming the review.

The Transparency Project, a legal education charity that campaigns for a more open family justice system and, like Cafcass, gave evidence to the panel said it was “thrilled” with the review, which referenced a number of its initiatives to publish information within the existing legal framework.

The project’s chair, lawyer Lucy Reed, said the president’s conclusions held great potential for addressing “current levels of distrust and misinformation about family courts” and how this could be achieved responsibly.

She commended the approach to confidentiality and said that the group had told the panel that “those representing and working with older children [needed] to become used to discussing these issues with them so that they could give informed consent or make informed objections to publication of information about their case.” The project suggested that Cafcass might develop materials to support professionals in this work.

In response to the report, chief social worker for children and families Isabelle Trowler tweeted:

“Pleased to have given evidence to the Panel & to see this as the outcome. Well done to all those who have campaigned for greater access, all understanding the need to keep on protecting the interests of children as part of this greater good.”

Foster care matching needs more resource to tackle the “crisis atmosphere” of many placement decisions, research has recommended.

What Works for Children’s Social Care said increased funding was needed to enable social workers to “enact” the National Minimum Standard (NMS) on matching (standard 15). This requires a placement match to meet a child’s needs and be consistent with their wishes and feelings, and for foster carers to be provided with all the appropriate information about a child.

The WWCSC’s systematic review of existing research found matches were often made in a hurry, based on placement availability rather than the child’s needs, and with child and carer receiving little information about each other before the child arrives at the foster home.

The report contrasted fostering with adoption matching, which was better resourced, based on “more established” processes and involved more child-centred practice.

Need for child-centred practice

Increased funding should be used to make foster care similarly child-centric and reduce the “devastating effects” of the “sudden shifts of household” that children could experience if this type of consultative work didn’t take place, the researchers concluded.

The report said more money in this part of the system should allow social workers to prioritise “reflective practice on the complexity of [children’s] identities and needs”. It would enable them to have more discussion with children and young people, arrange visits where possible and involve birth families more in decisions.

“Greater resources should also go into the creation of more efficient and better systems for matching…and into the recruitment of more foster carers so that there are greater choices for a match, even within a short space of time,” the review continued.

It suggested creating national databases would also allow foster carers to proactively search for children.

‘Rushed decision-making’

The reviewers found that while “rushed decision-making is inevitable in some cases”, because a child urgently needs somewhere to stay, children and foster carers viewed it as leading to negative outcomes, including placement breakdown.

“Even within this environment [where placements need to be made quickly], they felt that social work professionals should attempt to share as much information as possible in advance of the move to help foster carers and children prepare for the transition and make it easier for them to settle into new foster homes,” the researchers concluded.

The studies reviewed indicated that social workers did not often involve birth parents in matching decisions or the transition to the new home, “but where done appropriately, this may help children and young people to settle”.

‘What is important to the child’

Recommendations about greater consultation with children included discussing which aspects of their identity, wishes, for example round location or being with siblings – and care needs were most important to them in matching.

“If the social worker could talk more to the children about what is important to them, they might be surprised that it is something that we may consider quite low down on the wish list. What we think is important to the child probably is not the most important thing in their life.” (Fostering agency representative, quoted from a 2020 study)

The report cited examples where difficulties and placement disruptions could have been avoided if children had been involved and able to share, for example, that they didn’t want to stay in a household with a dog, or with a large family

A number of the studies found social workers often prioritised matching by ethnicity and culture and spoke about the ‘need’ for or ‘shortage of” carers from particular ethnic groups. The review noted cases that showed how foster carers from the same or similar cultural or ethnic background could “readily meet certain needs that a young person may have, particularly around positive identity development, feeling at home, access to familiar food or religious practices”.

Placing children from similar cultural or linguistic backgrounds with the same foster family could also could help them feel more at home and settled.

Need for intersectional focus

However,  researchers said an understanding of intersectionality – that people have multiple identities, such as race, gender, class, sexual orientation, religion or language,  that “create overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage” – was key to child-centred work and moving away from matching as a “tick-box decision-making exercise”.

The report recommended that social workers “should reflect on the importance and complexity of identity and needs and how they shift over time”.

The review found that social class in particular was less likely to be discussed with children and called for its role in matching to be researched further.

‘Co-constructing’ a family

Researchers noted that during a move, “the importance of a child or young person understanding the culture of the new household and house rules was often emphasised, rather than the co-construction of a household together”.

They suggested that the concept of “co-constructing” a family –focused on shared experience, adapting existing structures and embracing a child’s culture, religion and likes – could be relevant for foster carer training and supervision.

Studies they reviewed had found this was particularly important for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

The report also recommended that social workers should involve other children in the foster carer’s household as well as the carers in the decision-making process where appropriate.

A struggling council’s dependence on newly-qualified social workers (NQSWs) who lack management support is hampering its ability to make progress, Ofsted has said.

On a focused visit to Herefordshire, where children’s services were rated as ‘requires improvement’ in 2018, inspectors found nearly half of social workers were recently qualified.

Due to vacancies and sickness among team managers, frontline staff were not receiving consistent oversight and supervision, they warned.

“This means leaders and managers have not been successful in creating the conditions needed to support the development of effective social work practice,” inspectors said in their letter published last week, following the visit in early July.

They highlighted workers focusing on parental needs at the expense of hearing children’s voices and understanding the impact of their experiences, leading to risks not always being fully understood.

In 2018, Herefordshire was criticised in three court judgments. The council is currently under Department for Education (DfE) monitoring and an improvement strategy following a damning High Court  judgment earlier this year that said the “fitness for purpose” of its children’s social care was in doubt.

In their letter to Cath Knowles, the interim director of children’s services appointed along with other new senior leaders in the wake of the High Court decision, the inspectors recognised that the new leadership and council members had taken the judgment “very seriously” and “accurately identified” the priorities to address.

But they said it was too early to assess the impact of the planned changes and found “little progress” in the quality of practice for children-in-need and on child protection plans since Ofsted’s last focused visit in December 2019.

‘Supervision not always recorded’

Inspectors said the frequency and effectiveness of case supervision was an area for priority action. Ineffective supervision has been highlighted as a problem at the council by Ofsted since 2012, Herefordshire councillors noted when approving its improvement strategy.

The letter found some children’s records showed no evidence of any supervision taking place. Managers they spoke to reported that supervision happened but was “not always recorded due to competing priorities”.

Looking at the impact of almost half the workforce being newly qualified, the letter said NQSWs “have caseloads that are not reflective or appropriate for their skills and knowledge” and “do not consistently receive much-needed guidance and oversight from managers”.

This meant social workers lacked direction and clarity about how plans should progress, the inspectors found, leading to drift and delay for some children. Where supervision was recorded, actions often lacked sufficient purpose and timescales, again causing drift.

‘Overly focused’ on adults

Inspectors found this meant some children stayed on child protection plans for too long and that there was as yet “no routine or effective mechanism” for remedying this poor practice.

They found audits were “overly optimistic” in their evaluations and focused on process rather than supporting social workers to learn. The inspectors noted that the leadership team recognised its quality assurance was not effective and was introducing a new system.

Reviewing child protection plans, they found they were “ineffective” at demonstrating what needs to happen to minimise the risk of him. While plans were “overly focused” on the needs of adults at the expense of children’s wishes and feelings and interventions focus mainly on parents, inspectors also said “parents struggle to understand what they need to do and when they need to do it by”.

Ofsted recognised that home visits took place regularly and praised Herefordshire’s approach to continuing these in person and remotely during the pandemic but said “little attention” was given to children during visits. Inspectors found social workers were able to articulate a “better understanding of children’s needs” but said the voice of the child was not consistently reflected and used to inform assessments, records or plans.

They applauded family support workers’ intensive work with families to develop trusting relationships and improve parenting skills. But the letter again reported a lack of emphasis on working with children, meaning “the analysis of professionals is always incomplete or skewed”.

Recruitment and retention ‘not effective’

Part of Herefordshire’s improvement plan includes independent exit interviews for social workers leaving the service. The inspectors noted recruitment and retention challenges identified in previous visits continued with high turnover, vacancy rates and reliance on agency staff. They found social workers in some teams feeling under “enormous stress” and “burnt out”.

The limited guidance and oversight for the high numbers of newly qualified staff also left this group “vulnerable, and at risk of leaving the service”.

They concluded that the previous leadership team’s recruitment and retention strategy “has not been effective in tackling the authority’s longstanding problem of being unable to attract skilled and experienced permanent social workers.”

The council’s improvement strategy includes an extra £5.2 million to be spent on children’s services over the next two years,  a third of which is earmarked for interim staffing.

New leadership team

Herefordshire social workers told inspectors they felt listened to by the new senior leadership team who have arranged drop-in sessions and briefings for staff and said they have “a greater focus on children”.

Cath Knowles and Diana Toynbee, Herefordshire’s cabinet member for children’s services, safeguarding and corporate parenting issued a joint statement saying that it was “reassuring” Ofsted’s priorities reflected their own.

They described the service’s improvement plan as a “long-term vision” and highlighted that the improvement board is independently chaired by a DfE advisor with a “partnership approach” that will “help to ensure that children are at the heart of everything we do and we support and help children, young people, and their families at the right time, in the right way.

“We are fortunate to have passionate and dedicated staff, managers, members, partners, foster carers and the children and young people themselves and we will continue to work together to achieve a ‘good’ Ofsted rating, but we recognise that this will take time,” the statement said.

The Supreme Court has voiced its ‘deep anxiety’ over the ongoing shortage of secure accommodation for children and highlighted the government’s failure to address it in the face of repeated warnings by judges.

The comments came in a judgment in which the court said it was lawful, but an “imperfect stop gap”, for the High Court to use its inherent jurisdiction to authorise children’s deprivation of liberty outside of approved secure accommodation.

In Re T, it rejected an appeal from a young person about High Court orders authorising her placement in an unregistered and then a non-secure children’s home.

However, giving the lead judgment in the case, Lady Black warned that the Supreme Court’s conclusion “[did] not address or resolve the underlying cause” of the dearth of accommodation for children with complex needs who were a risk to themselves or others.

Lack of government action on judges’ warnings

She stressed that the “shortcomings” of the care system which gave her “deep anxiety” were “by no means new”. She cited the growing number of applications for the High Court to use its powers in recent years and the many calls by family court judges and the former Children’s Commissioner for England for increased provision for children with complex mental health and other needs, including suicidal, self-harming or sexually harmful behaviour and a history of arson.

However, she highlighted that such calls had not been met by government, adding: “It has been drawn repeatedly to the attention of those who could be expected to take steps to ameliorate the situation, without noticeable effect.”

Lady Black also said that the Supreme Court’s judgment would “no doubt add materially” to the number of cases of this kind going to the High Court.

Although T’s appeal was now “academic” as she was 19 and living independently”, Lady Black said the issues in her case continued to affect a significant number of children whose circumstances were put before the High Court. They were those who met the criteria for a secure accommodation order but for whom no secure home place could be found or whoselocal authority assessed that their needs would be better met in an alternative placement – for example, with specialist therapeutic care. Lady Black also identified another group of children who did not meet the secure accommodation criteria but needed to be deprived of their liberty to keep them safe.

T had been in the care of Caerphilly council and, prior to the period covered by her appeal, had been placed in approved secure accommodation. The case she took to the Supreme Court, which had been dismissed by the Court of Appeal in 2018, related to a period in 2017 when Caerphilly had to seek alternative accommodation to meet all her needs. She was moved, firstly, to an unregistered children’s home and, when this broke down, to a registered children’s home that was not approved for secure accommodation. In both homes, she was deprived of her liberty and these arrangements were authorised by the High Court.

Appeal grounds rejected

The Supreme Court rejected T’s argument that section 100(2)(d) of the Children Act 1989 – which prohibits the use of the inherent jurisdiction to empower a local authority to determine any question in relation to parental responsibility for a child – meant it should not be used in her case. It said that, as T was already subject to a care order, the local authority already had parental responsibility for her so the question did not arise.

T’s second ground of appeal was that using the inherent jurisdiction for this purpose cut across the statutory scheme in relation to secure accommodation under section 25 of the Children Act 1989/section 119 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014.

The Supreme Court dismissed this argument and agreed with the interpretation put forward by the education secretary that if a local authority cannot apply for a section 25/section 119 order because there is no approved secure accommodation available, “the inherent jurisdiction can, and will have to be, used to fill that gap”.

“It is fortunate that the inherent jurisdiction is there to fill the gaps in the present provision, but it cannot be doubted that it is only an imperfect stop gap, and not a long term solution,” Lady Black continued. She drew attention to the “grave reservations” judges had expressed in similar cases about unregulated or unregistered placements not being fully equipped to meet a child’s welfare needs but the “only option” to keep them safe.

Decision issued ‘through gritted teeth’

In her concurring judgment, Lady Arden said it was not satisfactory for the courts to be used to address “not just a specific gap but a systemic gap” in the care system.

Mental capacity law barrister Alex Ruck Keene described the Supreme Court’s decision as one made “through gritted teeth”. In his blog, he noted that the judges would not have seen the High Court’s recent decision in Wigan BC v Y, where it refused to use the inherent jurisdiction to authorise the ongoing deprivation of liberty of a 12-year-old boy in a general hospital paediatric ward not set up to manage his “challenging, violent and increasingly self-harming behaviour”. The High Court had found that “the absence of an alternative cannot render what is the single option available in Y’s best interests and hence lawful.”

It was “difficult to see” that the Supreme Court would not have endorsed this conclusion, Ruck Keene said.

Lady Black said she had been particularly concerned about whether it was lawful for the inherent jurisdiction to be used to authorise a placement in an unregistered children’s home given that a person who manages such a home is committing a criminal offence. She agreed with Lord Stephens, who rejected the arguments by the education secretary that there would be a defence of “necessity/duress of circumstances” if criminal charges were made.

Criminal offence concerns

The judges emphasised that the High Court’s focus was on the welfare and safety of children. “Obviously, that central focus requires the court to give anxious and detailed consideration to the risks to the child in respect of a placement in which [a criminal] offence may be committed. However, the High Court is not required to determine whether an offence will be committed or whether the individual has an available defence,” Lord Stephens found, and said prosecution would be a matter for the criminal courts.

The Supreme Court drew attention to guidance by the President of the Family Division issued in November 2019 that says, where such placements have been authorised, registration should be sought “expeditiously” with duties on the court to monitor the progress of the application, keep its approval of the placement under review if registration is not achieved and check that the local authority is “taking steps to assure themselves” that the child’s care is safe and suitable. An addendum issued in December 2020 also requires local authorities to immediately notify Ofsted or the Care Inspectorate Wales when unregistered placements are made.

T’s other ground for appeal – that as she consented to the placements, court authorisation was not necessary and against her best interests – was also dismissed. Lady Black said she accepted it was “of particular significance to [T] that her views should be respected” but agreed with the Court of Appeal that T’s behaviour demonstrated that her consent was not “authentic and enduring”.

The judge noted that “even leaving to one side difficult issues about the pressures that circumstances may place on a child to consent to a proposed arrangement, an apparently balanced and free decision made by a child may be quickly revised and/or reversed”. She said the case clearly demonstrated the “insecurity” of a child’s apparent consent.

However, she emphasised that this case was not the place to comprehensively explore “the complications attending consent to deprivation of liberty” and the Supreme Court was not setting up “new tests” for consent in this type of case.

Upcoming ban on unregulated placements

The judges also noted that the T was 15 at the time of her placements in 2017 and a ban on placing under-16s in unregulated homes is due to come into force in September. Lady Arden said her conclusions were on the basis that the education secretary was only asking the High Court to exercise its inherent jurisdiction going forward to authorise the placement of a child over 16 in an unregistered home. “Any other application will have to be considered on its merits,” she continued.

In response to the judgment, a DfE spokesperson said: “Every young person in care deserves to live in accommodation that meets their needs and keeps them safe and local authorities are responsible for providing sufficient and suitable accommodation for the children they look after.

“We are developing a new capital funding programme to aid local authorities to establish new children’s homes. We will also provide a further £24m this year to start a new programme focused on maintaining and increasing the number of secure children’s home places available, so more children are in high-quality, safe homes close to their families and support networks.”

Next month, councils will be banned from placing children in care aged under 16 in unregulated placements, the first stage of a planned reform of such ‘independent’ and ‘semi-independent’ accommodation.

Stage two concerns the vast majority of such placements, for those aged 16 and 17, for which the government has proposed national standards, backed up by regulation by Ofsted, but on a more minimal basis than for children’s homes.

The plans are the Department for Education’s (DfE) answer to shocking stories of young people being placed in caravan parks, barges or tents, in the same provision as adults struggling with addiction and mental ill-health or in settings that make them “easy prey” for exploitation in high- crime areas.

However, while there is widespread agreement on the inappropriateness of placements of this nature, the sector is split on the government’s proposed solutions. Children’s rights charity Article 39, the most vocal critic, has lodged  a legal challenge to the ban on placing under-16s in unregulated accommodation, on the grounds that it discriminates against 16- and 17-year-olds.

However, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) has repeatedly raised concerns about the prohibition exacerbating the issues councils already face in finding placements for children with more complex needs in children’s homes, secure care or specialist foster placements.

Analysis of responses to the consultation on stage two show that this split, between charities concerned about a two-tier system and council leaders worried about supply of placements, persists, though the latter are more supportive overall.

Care or support?

The DfE put forward 12 indicators to determine whether a provider is offering ‘care’ (and therefore should be registered as a children’s home) or ‘support’ for 16- and 17-year-olds, meaning it would be regulated under the planned new regime. Indicators that a setting provided support included that young people could leave, or go on an overnight stay, without permission, had full control over their finances and clothing and were regularly left without staff supervision. Where staff had access to medical records, there was a sanctions policy that went beyond house rules and the setting had responsibility for aftercare, this would indicate that it provided care.

Respondents were split on the calibre of the indicators themselves. While the Local Government Association (LGA) and ADCS, in their joint response, described them as “broadly helpful” in distinguishing between care and support, looked-after children and care leaver charity Become labelled some of them “clearly nonsensical and paradoxical”. It pointed out that existing children’s home regulations said that young people should be given appropriate freedom over day-to-day choices, such as over clothing, while those in independent or semi-independent accommodation rarely had full control over their finances.

There was more agreement over the problem of drawing a hard and fast line between care and support, given children and young people’s fluctuating and individual needs.

Fluctuating needs

The LGA and ADCS said that a teenager may require elements of care one week but not the next, while Become said young people’s circumstances and vulnerabilities “can change considerably in short spaces of time”.

Become and children’s rights charity Article 39 said the answer to this was to ensure all providers were required to offer ‘care’ to children in their accommodation based on their individual needs – essentially for them all to be treated as children’s homes.

However, the ADCS, LGA and the Independent Children’s Home Association (ICHA) did not oppose the care/support distinction but instead stressed that providers of ‘support’ should have the flexibility to respond to young people’s needs for ‘care’.

“Strict definitions” may “disincentivise” providers from offering support around areas like budgeting or managing health needs in case they crossed the boundary into providing care, the ADCS and LGA warned.

In its consultation, the government proposed referring to regulated independent or semi-independent placements as “supported accommodation for older children”. There was general disagreement with the government’s proposed term, but again, for different reasons.

Focus on transition

Many young people in this type of accommodation would not see themselves as “older children”, the LGA and ADCS said. Both they, and the ICHA, proposed dubbing it “supported accommodation for young people” to reflect the fact that it was for those transitioning into adulthood, who would be expected to have a level of independence and responsibility.

In an interview with Community Care, ICHA deputy chief executive Liz Cooper said focusing on transition could enable the currently unregulated sector to specialise in this area and ensure a young person is referred because they are ready for transition, rather than it being the only available or affordable option.

However, for Become and Article 39, the problem was that the term risked validating the practice of placing 16 and 17-year-olds in currently unregulated placements, which they said was councils’ response to insufficient appropriate placements rather than a reflection of young people’s needs.

Become said it could “establish an additional ‘cliff edge’” like that already experienced by many care leavers at 18.

The charities suggested terms such as ‘homes for children and young people’ or ‘children and young people’s residential care’ as possible options, but stressed the importance of consulting looked-after children on the issue.

‘Need for high expectations’

The DfE proposed four standards for supported accommodation – covering leadership and management, protection, workforce planning, and location assessments – compared with nine for children’s homes.

Both Become and Article 39 said the existing children’s home quality standards, modified where required, should be used instead.

The former said children and young people it had consulted emphasised the importance of some of the ‘missing’ children’s home standards for those in supported accommodation, including those covering education, developing positive relationships and the quality and purpose of care.

While they saw the importance of supported accommodation preparing young people for adulthood, the charity said the young people felt it was “more helpful to start from a higher expectation of care and support and then reduce as needed”.

The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) told the previous consultation on this topic that standards which considered “the holistic and long-term needs of children” would be welcome. However, many areas BASW members suggested for inclusion – among others: policies on visitors to reduce the risk of drug dealers entering; independent living skills training; a minimum frequency that young people should be seen; procedures for young people who self-harm, use alcohol and drugs and for bullying – are not covered in the proposed standards.

Risk of higher costs and providers existing market

The ADCS and LGA called the proposed standards “reasonable”, though said they should be supplemented to include policies for young people who go missing and a requirement to consult the police about the location of accommodation, which is often “in exactly the wrong areas”.

However, they also raised concerns that that supported accommodation providers may look to recoup the costs of meeting new national standards via their prices.

“This is exactly what happened when new regulations and quality standards were introduces in residential children’s homes several years ago,” they said.

Capacity challenges

They also warned there was a risk that existing capacity challenges would be exacerbated by some current providers ducking out of the market if meeting the new standards were too onerous.

The associations also made this point in relation to the registration and inspection regime for supported accommodation.

“Any future arrangements must guard again the potential for recreating the difficulties children and young people with the most complex needs currently face in terms of access to registered children’s homes; homes will not accept them for fear of jeopardising their Ofsted rating, or costs of placements are driven up by the few providers that are willing to accept that risk,” they said.

The DfE has put forward two options for registering and inspecting providers: on a per setting basis, as is the case for children’s homes, or on a per provider basis. The first would require each setting to have its own registered manager accountable to the regulator, and Ofsted would have powers of entry to the setting to carry out inspections and be able to take enforcement action against it. By contract, provider-based regulation would focus on the systems that providers set up to ensure they met national standards, with a sample of settings subject to inspection.

Inspection options

The ADCS and LGA said they favoured a provider-based regime, which would complement local authority monitoring arrangements, warning that a settings-based approach would be too burdensome for providers “and have the potential to destabilise [their] workforce”.. Provider based inspection would allow more flexibility for making crisis placements, they said.

However, both Article 39 and Become backed settings-based inspection in order to ensure that the experiences of children and young people could be adequately assessed.

Article 39 said inspecting only at provider level would focus mainly on the “perspective and presentation” of the organisation running the service, rather than young people’s feeling about their home and the staff employed there. “It gives an advantage to larger providers and builds in safeguarding risks as the larger the provider, the more they will be able to hide poor practice and unsuitable living environments from inspectors,” its response continued.

It is not currently clear what a local authority will be expected to do if it cannot find a suitably regulated placement, either for a child under 16 after September, or under 18 when the additional reforms come in.

The ADCS and LGA said they expected the reforms to lead to an increase in the use of bespoke unregistered placements in emergency cases where councils lacked in-house provision, given providers’ “unwilling[ness] to work with our most complex young people”.

A continuing need for unregulated care?

BASW members, in response to the last consultation, stressed that young people themselves may reject regulated options.

“Occasionally, for extremely complex and hard to engage young people, they might not accept what is available amongst regulated options and vote with their feet. In these cases, it may be more pragmatic to accept that they will be staying in an unregulated setting and try to work with them there rather than fight constantly to get them back into regulated setting and risk them absconding,” members told the association.

A number of responses also highlighted that the new rules could cause disruption and disadvantage young people in the short term. The ADCS and LGA referred to the additional pressures on placements caused by the pandemic and suggested a transition period for the September ban to “prevent further upheaval and change for young people who may be settled and making progress in their current placement”. No transition period is provided for by the regulations bringing the ban into force.

Similar anxieties had been raised by BASW members about what would happen when new standards are implemented for supported 16+ accommodation. “Some placements will not meet these standards and children may be settled there. It will mean children will have to be moved which may impact on education, seeing family and friends, leaving staff they have good relationships with. Providers will need enough time to implement these standards,” the association summarised from its survey.

Future reform

The reforms are coming into force against the backdrop of two significant reviews into children’s social care: the government-commissioned care review, led by Josh MacAlister, and the Competition and Markets Authority’s separate study into market for fostering, children’s home and unregulated provision.

Both studies are due to report next year and will be expected to answer the key challenge thrown up by the latest consultation: raising the quality of placements for children and young people in care while also addressing the shortfall in supply.

As a result, more reform in this area is on the cards.

The UK government has been told to pay a social worker €24,000 (c.£20,600) in damages for breaches of her human rights arising from “manifestly unfair” misconduct allegations from a judge in 2014 that brought her career to a halt.

In a ruling last month, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found the practitioner’s right to respect for her private life had been violated as a result of the judge’s allegations that she had lied to the family court and failed to uphold professional guidelines while investigating alleged sexual abuse.

This was because the family court judge had made the criticisms in a judgment without having given the practitioner the opportunity to answer them in the preceding hearing, and then disseminated the judgment to current and potential employers and professional bodies.

This engaged her right to respect for her private life, under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, as this encompasses protection of reputation and the ability to pursue one’s chosen profession or business.

Unable to work

Directly on receiving the judgment, the local authority she was working for as a locum terminated her contract. She was left effectively unemployable for two years, until the Court of Appeal struck the judge’s words from the record in a 2016 judgment on the grounds that her Article 8 rights would be breached if his “manifestly unfair” criticisms were allowed to stand.

But, diagnosed with fibromyalgia caused by stress in 2015, she has been unable to work since. In 2018, a psychiatrist found that the “highly traumatic experience” of receiving the family court judge’s findings had caused post-traumatic stress disorder.

However, she was left unable to claim compensation in the domestic courts because she would have been unable to prove that the family court judge had acted in bad faith in making his criticisms. In 2017, she was granted permission to take her case to the ECtHR as the only route open for her to claim compensation.

The ECtHR found that the absence of an effective remedy to the breach of her right to private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights constituted a further violation of her rights, under Article 13 of the convention.

Compensation claim

The social work had claimed £1,057,406 in compensation for past and future lost earnings and medical care, as well as £40,000 in non-pecuniary (non-financial) damages.

However, Yonko Grozev, president of the ECtHR, said it had to reject the social worker’s main claim for financial damages as the Court of Appeal had only criticised the process by which the original judge had reached and shared his findings; it had not considered whether the allegations were justified.

“It is not the applicant’s fault that the domestic courts did not analyse the evidence underpinning the judge’s findings; presumably, had she been able to bring a claim for compensation, the national courts would have had to examine precisely these issues,” he said.

While this meant the ECtHR could not find that there was a direct link between the violations of the social worker’s human rights caused by the judgment and her ongoing inability to work, the court said her lack of opportunity to bring a claim for substantial damages and the anxiety and distress she suffered “warrants monetary compensation”.

President Grozev said that these none of these elements “lend [themselves] to a process of calculation or precise quantification” but taking into account all the circumstances of the case and what was “fair, just and reasonable”, it would award €24,000 damages.

In addition to the damages, the social worker had claimed £38,849 for the costs of the UK court cases and £74,033 for the costs of the ECtHR case. The European court agreed with the government that this claim was “excessive” and awarded €60,000 (£51,477) in total costs.